


Gone

by prepare4trouble



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Gen, I cried the whole way through writing this, Kanan Says Goodbye, Memories, Not Entirely Real, Or Possibly Not, Post-Jedi Night, even though I was trying to make myself feel better, that didn't work then
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: Kanan has some things he wants to say, and Hera is determined not to remember why that is impossible.





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Dealing through fanfic, I guess. This one is… I dunno. The concept came to me on the drive home from work, listening to the acoustic version of ‘Dine, Dine my Darling’ by Alkaline Trio. I don’t often associate music with fiction, but sometimes it works. Partial credit for one of the concepts here goes to my brother Mob. He believed that a person is never really gone from the world because everything they have touched, or done, or influenced in any way is a part of them, and as long as those things remain, so does the person. They have simply lost their ability to exert any more influence. (It's a nice thought and I wish I could believe it too)
> 
> In Kanan’s case though, I don’t believe he _has_ lost that ability.

“Rough day?”

Hera turned to see Kanan looking at her sympathetically.  She nodded.  “You have no idea.”

“Want to talk about it?” he asked

She considered it, but no.  She didn’t want to think about that right now.  Or ever, if she had a choice in the matter.  Whatever had been bothering her, it was over with.  Things seemed fine now.  She frowned; that didn’t feel right.  It had been important.

“What’s wrong?” Kanan asked.  His face creased into concern and he moved a little closer, ready to help, if he needed to.

She shook her head.  “It’s okay, it’s nothing.  I just…” she wasn’t sure.  Whatever it was, it seemed to have resolved itself.  “Nothing.”

Kanan smiled.  He touched her shoulder, his hand brushing gently against her lekku as he did.  “Okay, good.  So, ready to eat?”

The room smelled of food; she hadn’t noticed before.  Something spicy and exotic.  She recognized it, but couldn’t quite put her finger on why.  She was hungry though, and it smelled wonderful.  She smiled.  “Definitely.”

Kanan lifted two plates onto the table, setting one down in front of her.  He took a seat opposite with his own.

She recognized it now.  They had eaten this once before, years earlier, they had stopped at a little tavern on some back-water moon and somehow had the best meal of her life.  They had never been able to find the place again.  In a way, it had been their anniversary.  It hadn’t been, not really.  Truthfully, they didn’t have one; neither of them had thought to memorize the day they had met, or the first time they had kissed, the first time they had made love.  These things had simply happened.  But the meal had marked an approximate anniversary, and they had decided between them that the day would do as well as any other.

Not that they had ever celebrated it again after that.  There had always been something going on, something more pressing; someone in danger that needed to be saved, some mission that needed to be completed.

She tried to think when it had been, but she had lost track of the date.  Honestly, she wasn’t even sure of the current date.  She didn’t think it was now, though.  It didn’t feel right.  This felt like an occasion, but not that.

“It can’t be our anniversary.” she said.

Kanan shook his head.  “It isn’t.  It’s something else.”

Hera took a bite of her dinner, and it tasted exactly like the meal she remembered.  Kanan smiled as he watched her.  “How is it?  How’d I do?”

It was wonderful.  “You made this?” she asked.

He shrugged modestly.  “Do you see anyone else around here?”

She looked, just to check.  He was right of course; there was nobody else there.  They were aboard the Ghost.  She couldn’t remember when the Ghost had returned to Lothal.  Or maybe they had left the planet and rendezvoused with the Rebels on Yavin.  She didn’t remember.  That was strange, it felt like something she should know.  There was one thing she _did_  know though.  “You didn’t make this,” she told him.  “You couldn’t.”

Kanan frowned, apparently wounded by the accusation.  “Hey, I happen to be an excellent chef,” he said.  “You told me so yourself.  More than once as I recall.”

She smiled apologetically.  “Only because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” she told him.  She ate another piece.  It was wonderful.  It didn’t make any sense.

“Ouch,” Kanan said.

It had been a long time since he had cooked for her.  Before he had returned from Malachor.  Before he… Hera’s eyes widened, suddenly she realized what was wrong… or right.  “You can see me,” she said.

Kanan smiled, but there was a sadness to it that didn’t make any sense.  “Like you told me once, I could always see you.”

Yes, but not with his eyes.  Not for a long time now.  Hera shook her head; the ghost of a memory began to rise like smoke from a fire, and she pushed it down.  She didn’t want to know.

She took another bite of her food.  It was  _exactly_  as she remembered it.  The taste, the smell.  She could almost hear the background noise of the tavern, the music playing quietly, the chatter of the other patrons.  She closed her eyes and held on to the memory even as reality tried harder to surface.  

“Hera,” Kanan said.  “I have to tell you something.”

He got to his feet, walked around to her side of the table, and took her hand in his own.  His skin felt warm and dry, and exactly as it always had.

He didn’t need to tell her, and she didn’t want him to; she already knew.  They hadn’t left Lothal.  They couldn’t possibly be here, on the Ghost together.  They couldn’t be eating this meal.  Unbidden, her mind thought back, searching for a recent memory.  

Pain.  She remembered pain.  Not physical, though that had been there too.  She remembered fire.  Chopper trying to comfort her.  She remembered her kalikori, and another piece added to it.  She remembered…

“No,” she said.

Kanan tugged gently on her hand, encouraging her to her feet.  He wrapped his arms around her.  Through the contact; his chest against hers, she could feel his heartbeat.  She could hear his breathing, smell the subtle scent of him.

“No,” she said again.  She shook her head.  “I don’t understand…” it didn’t make any sense.  How could he be here?  How could they both be here?  She looked into his eyes; so clear, so bright, exactly as she remembered them.  Exactly as they had been again, just for a moment.  Just before he…  “Kanan… how?” she just about managed to say.

He smiled, sadly.  “It’s too hard to explain when I don’t understand it myself.  But I never had a chance to say goodbye.  I wanted that.  I wanted you to have that too.”

She nodded, head pressed against his shoulder, feeling the wetness of her own tears damping the fabric of his shirt.  It was impossible, but she had seen so much she had once believed impossible that it didn’t matter anymore.  “Why did you leave us?” she asked.  But of course she already knew the answer.

“I didn’t want to,” he told her.  “If there’d been any other way…”

He was right, of course.  Lose Kanan or lose all of them.  To him, it had to have been no choice at all.  She hated it.

“I know it doesn’t feel that way,” he continued, “but it’s going to be okay now.”

It wasn’t.   _Nothing_ was going to be okay.

“You’re going to have to trust me on this,” Kanan told her.  “One last time.  Please?”

It wasn’t fair.  But nothing was.  She had come to accept that over the years.  She nodded her head, willing to trust him.  “Okay.”

“I love you,” Kanan told her.  “I always have.”

“I…” she began.

“I always will.”  He pulled her a little closer.  His lips brushed against hers, she could feel his breath, warm against her skin, and it felt so real; he was there, he was alive.

“I love you too,” she whispered, just before the world around her faded away.

She woke with a start, shivering, sitting on the hard dry ground of the cave, arms wrapped around her own knees, back against the wall.  She was alone.  Only no, she wasn’t.  She could still feel the ghost of his touch, smell the scent of his skin.  She exhaled, and his last breath was expelled from her lungs to become one with the atmosphere of the planet.  

Outside the cave, people that had known him remembered; would always remember.  She was still here, because he had saved her, and Ezra, and Sabine.  Objects that he had touched, that he had moved or created were still there.  Even without thinking of the Force — his presence within it, concepts that she couldn’t begin yet to understand — he wasn’t gone.  Not really.

Nobody was ever really gone.

She was going to miss him all the same.


End file.
